Well its just like it sounds folks. Of all the Tale's games you've played, which one did you like the least/hate.

I think for me, I liked Tales of Legendia the least. I've only played Legendia, Abyss and Symphonia so its not like I have a huge array of things to pull from but I think thats the worst one in my opinion.

Now, let me be clear, I kinda like Legendia but I could never really get into it. And I never figured out why. I know why I don't like it: Characters, plot and presentation. And I know why I like it: SOME characters, battle system.

Hmmm now, as for the characters. I liked the dude Will and somewhat liked Jae. The Otters were kinda cute too but meh. Anyway, as for everyone else in the story, I don't think they could have been more cliche and annoying. The main dude was borderline incestual with his sister (yes I know the deal with them but keep quite for those that haven't played yet) The knight chick was annoying cause she wanted the main character (how original... >.> ) and everyone else just kinda fell into this cliche pit that made them so pissy and annoying.

The plot...I'm not even sure what the hell was going on. It felt like an extended super mario game. Everytime you save the princess, something happens and she's snatched away again. It gets annoying after the 2nd time. Specially when one of those times is due to the main character being a dumbass.

The overall presentation of the story was hyper linear and seemed to relly heavily on a town that didn't grow. I HATE that. You have this huge ass ship, continent, thing with barely any towns on it but a humongous amount of dungeons and yet, the main town that you keep getting sent too almost never grows in events or inventory or nothing. I hate that kinda crap. I want to explore not only the dungeons but the towns as well. And I never really got a feel for the game systems like you do in Abyss and Symphonia. They all seemed more like dragged along features that were just thrown in cause they were markers of the Tales series.

And for the battle system. It was interesting for what it was. Kept you interested and moving which is good but...can be overdone. Some fights were just unnecisarily hard. Oh well, maybe it was just me.

Well, thats my opinion, whats yours?

I can't really understand how you feel about the game because I never played it. I've actually only played Tales of Symphonia on Gamecube and now I'm playing Tales of the world radiant mythology on the PSP. And I must say that storywise, ToS is a lot better than ToW, I don't really like creating my own character, and I think the add-on masteries like "fighting" and "ninja" are kinda shallow.

Also the whole sory about being a descender and that a giant creature is eating the mana away of "our" world, that's pretty non-credible. I also don't like how Kratos, Raine, Lloyd and other ToS figures are simply being shoved in the game without any explanation. It doesn't feel right to me.

Well...I’ve only played Abyss and Symphonia in completion, about half of Phantasia, and Legendia is waiting to be opened. So, I’d say (at the moment) that Phantasia is my least favorite. The characters aren’t as gripping as I’d hoped for, (but they aren’t bad) and the story (or at least presentation thereof) sort of suffers because of it. I dunno. It just isn’t as memorable to me than the other two, but I wouldn’t ride it off as a bad game, per se. Just not the best.

@Forcystus26
You really can't compare the Tales of the World games to the main series games, its nothing but a spin-off to offer follows of the series a bit of fan service and it shows.

Try and enjoy the game for what it is, but if you want something to compete with Tales of Symphonia then pick up Tales of the Abyss, if you can't do that give Tales of Eternia (PSP) a try - that should give you a truer tales experience.

With regards to the thread topic, I don't think I can pick one that I disliked as they all offer something that made the games enjoyable, even with ToW:RM you got exactly what was being said on the tin so to speak. I've only played four of the games in the series myself and will be trying to get round to Legendia sometime this year, though with all the promised Tales goodness promised at the end of the year it might end up being bumped into 2009.

Graphics wise Legendia has never really appealed to me, as I dont particularly like the chosen graphic style nor the original artwork for the character design. I'm guessing this will prove to be my least favourite of the true series due primarily to the strength of ToS and TotA but here's hoping that i'll get a pleasant surprise!

tales of legendia is the worst for me by far. I beat both Symphonia and Abyss and loved them to tears but could not force my way through legendia. It just did not have that same humor and great characters that the other two had.

Yea I feel the same way. I beat Abyss and would have no problem waht so ever picking it up again and trouncing back through. Specially when you consider all the stuff you can miss in those games if you don't know where to look. There is sooooooooooo much USEFUL extra stuff to do in both games that its not funny. I mean, hell even getting the alternate outfits and titles can be useful in leveling characters or just pouncing on #####. All the extra storyline things and what not are just amazing. And when you think of the fact that both games were visually stunning for their period of time, and the fact that graphics usually eat up a huge amount of the disk as well as voice overs, its a wonder they could pump so much extra content into the game. Which relaly lets you know that companies like Square are just lazy ass #####. If they started to pump in as much USEFUL extras as the Tales series has (or as some of the PAST FF's had) I would not mind taking a hit in graphics in the least bit. Would you?

Have you played Character Quests?

No. Is that suppose to be what you get for beating the game? I noticed something like that in the instruction manual. Is that going to give the character depth?

If so, then I REALLY don't care for it. I don't want to have to beat a game just to gain knowledge about the characters that you should of explained DURING the game.

I find it a common misconception among people even Namco hometek themselves thinking that Character Quests were just some added bonus and not part of the game, when it is in fact the 2nd half of the game. You dont even get a cleared save when you finish Main Quest, how can you consider that beating the game?

Wow...seriously? I didn't know that. Hmmm I guess its just because of the way most older games run things like that. Once you've killed the last boss, everything else is always just considered 'extra' and thus 'not necissary' to understand the game. So, could someone tell me more about the character quests? Try not to do too much spoilers if you can help it.

To save time and energy I'll just quote Chi's description of the CQ and I pretty much agree with it anyway.



It is quite unlike the typical JRPG format that makes ToL differ even from the rest of the Tales games, the Character Quests focuses on Will, Norma, Moses, Chloe, Jay and Grune. Each of these character has their own story to tell, whether you'll like them or not is another matter.

hmmm ok, i think i'll keep trying. Thanks.

Although, I gotta admit. Only people I like in the game are Jay, Will and sometimes Norma. >.> Everyone else pisses me off or annoys me. Thanks!

Phantasia was probably the roughest I made it through like 65% of the game then lost the data on my computer. If you've played through the game then you probably know how tedious it is. It's fun and a great start to Tales and the game has a great start, but it really drags until you get to Dhaos's castle the first time then it drags again a bit. It's just that the battle system is so ridiculously tedious and there's not a lot you can do in battle since only one character, can actually attack the others do random magic, which believe me gets old and boring after awhile.
The characters are really funny Arche and Klarth, Cless is cool too, but overall you really don't feel for them as in some ways you forget about them as the story is not very character driven and much more quest driven.

Overall the game brought it tons of breakthroughs and an awesome soundtrack(best of the Tales I've heard so far), but even though Tales of Destiny is standard fare, I felt more attached to them than in Phantasia; though ToD suffered from putting its characters in the background as well.

ToA is the best I've played though the game is hugely character driven and there is a lot to learn about each of the characters; plus a game where every character is somehow connected to the final boss is great.

I'll get to ToS eventually, it may be awhile as I've got Half-Life 2 on the brain at the moment